The Body in the Fjord

Epilogue

“Didn’t you tell me there was someone named Sidney Harding on your trip?”

Faith Fairchild, carrying a newspaper, walked into Pix Miller’s kitchen late one afternoon a week after Pix’s return from Norway.

“Yes. Why?” Pix had to get Danny to soccer and drop off Samantha’s bathing suit, which she’d forgotten, for a pool party. She was also trying to think of something she could feed her husband for dinner that did not have red sauce or come with chopsticks.

“He’s mentioned in the business section of the Times today.”

Pix was two days behind in reading her Boston Globe. “What does it say?”

“‘Oil Company Reels at Unexpected Exec Departure.’ It looks like he suddenly decided to resign what has been a key position in the research and development of Norwegian oil fields. ‘When asked the reason for his departure, Mr. Harding issued no comment.’”

“So he was a spy, or passing secrets, whatever! Mother is always right, but let’s not tell her for a while. I think she’s holding out on me about something else. She keeps giving me these looks fraught with meaning. I’ll let things simmer, then offer a trade.”

Pix remembered she had a meat loaf in the freezer. Her postpartum Norway blues were beginning to lift. Soon she’d set out for the summer on Sanpere Island in Maine’s Penobscot Bay. It was very beautiful there, too, but the water wasn’t that incredible color and there weren’t any mountains. Yet she knew everybody, as she did in Aleford—and they knew her. Good old dependable Pix.

Maybe it was time for another trip.

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